SECT. XV. i. 6. CLASSES OF IDEAS. 97 



perfect reprefentations of the objefts they were received from ; 

 for here we abftract the material parts, and recollect only the 

 qualities. 



Thus we abftratft fo much from fome of our complex ideas, 

 that at length it becomes difficult to determine of what percep- 

 tion they partake ; and in many inftances our idea feems to be 

 no other than of the found or letters of the word, that (lands 

 for the collective tribe, of which we are faid to have an abftrafted 

 idea, as noun, verb, chimxra apparition. 



Mr. Home Tooke, alfo, in his Diverfions of Purley, has very 

 ingenioufly (hewn, that what were called general ideas, are in 

 reality only general terms ; or words which fignify any parts of 

 a complex object. Whence arifes much error in our verbal 

 reafoning, as the fame word has different (ignifications. And 

 hence thofe, who can think without words, reafon more accu- 

 rately than thofe, who only compare the ideas fuggefted by 

 words ; a rare faculty, which diftinguiihes the writers of phi- 

 lofophy from thofe of fophiftry. See Cbfs III. 2. 2. 3. 



6. Ideas have been divided into thofe of perception and thofe 

 of reflection, but as whatever is perceived mud be external to 

 the organ that perceives it, all our ideas muft originally be ideas 

 of perception. 



7. Others have divided our ideas into thofe of memory and 

 thofe of imagination \ they have faid that a recollection of ideas 

 in the order they were received confhitutes memory, and with- 

 out that order imagination ; but all the ideas of imagination, ex- 

 cepting the few that are termed fimple ideas, are parts of trains 

 or tribes in the order they were received ; as if I think of a 

 fphinx, or a griffin, the fair face, bofom, wings, claws, tail, are 

 all complex ideas in the order they were received : and it be- 

 hoves the writers, who adhere to this definition, to determine, 

 how fmall the trains muft be, that (hall be called imagination ; 

 and how great thofe, that (hall be called memory. 



Others have thought that the ideas of memory have a greater 

 vivacity than thofe of imagination : but the ideas of a perfon in 

 fleep, or in a waking reverie, where the trains connected with 

 fenfation are uninterrupted, are more vivid and diftinct than 

 thofe of memory, fo that they cannot be diftinguifhed by this 

 criterion. 



The very ingenious author of the Elements of Criticifm has 

 defcribed what he conceives to be a fpecies of memory, and calls 

 it ideal prefence ; but the inftances he produces are the reveries 

 of fenfation, and are therefore in truth connexions of the imag- 

 ination, though they are recalled in the order they were received. 



The ideas connected by aflbciation are in common difcourfe 



Vox,.'!. O attributed 



